


Better Vintages

by mousapelli



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Drinking, Hotels, Light Angst, M/M, Past Christophe Giacometti/Victor Nikiforov, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-01 19:46:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17250257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mousapelli/pseuds/mousapelli
Summary: Christophe had always known Victor wasn't his, but it stung less back when he thought Victor couldn't belong to anybody.





	Better Vintages

**Author's Note:**

  * For [myn_x](https://archiveofourown.org/users/myn_x/gifts).



> Written for 2018 SportsFest, Bonus Round 3. Prompt was "most likely to fall for someone he can never have."
> 
> I'll just fill this quick, I said, I don't have much to say about Christophe, I said. Well, I'm dumb.

Victor isn't his, is the one thing about Victor that Christophe has always known. Sometimes they are friends, sometimes they are lovers, sometimes Christophe is the only person in the entire world Victor trusts to tell him either the right lies or, even more painfully, the actual truth. They have shared secrets, bottles of wine, more nights in more cities in more hotel rooms than Christophe could ever try to count, and, few enough times that Christophe doesn't have to count them, lovers. But even when Victor is asleep, curled up against Christophe's chest silvery and peaceful like a wild thing from the woods that will evaporate at the first touch of the sun's rays, even then he isn't Christophe's.

Christophe doesn't bother to cry over it, isn't honestly even hurt over it. The thing is that Victor isn't anybody's, not really. He tries so hard to be everything at once, cold and warm and sweet and perfect and diligent and carefree and polished sharper than the ice itself, clear as glass, that Christophe is sometimes afraid that Victor doesn't even belong to himself. Victor is his choreography, his form, his quads, his career, his trajectory, but none of those things are a person you can grab onto and hold, all things that you can touch lightly, fleetingly, but never grip, never tether down. Victor is everyone's and so he is no one's, not his own, and certainly, never Christophe's.

But then, so suddenly Christophe feels like he's been winded by a bad fall flat on his back, Victor shows up to the Cup of China being very definitely Yuuri's. It's practically radiating off him, the way his hand gravitates to Yuuri's back and his eyes follow Yuuri even across the room, but mostly in the way Victor seems to be almost vibrating soundlessly with it, like a bell whose tone is just below hearing frequency but has been struck all the same.

Christophe feels unbalanced by something right in front of his face that'd always assumed was impossible, but forces himself to ignore it and focus on his program, on his warmup, on his skating. He pushes it all aside until much later at the hotel, texting Victor to come over to his room to catch up.

[I saw you more when you were competing!] he complains with a pouty emoji, laying on a guilt trip for good measure. Victor sends back one of those Japanese emoji made of text letters that Christophe can never decipher.

Christophe stays up later than he should, even when he's sure Victor isn't coming, but he turns up at last, murmuring that Yuuri's too anxious to sleep but that Phichit is entertaining him for a while and holding up a bottle of wine as an apology.

"I suppose it'll do," Christophe says, eyeing the label critically. "Even though I haven't quite forgiven you for drinking without me last night."

"Uuugh," Victor groans at the memory. He flops across Christophe's mussed bed; Christophe takes a long sip of wine and tries not to think about several other memories with better vintages and a lot fewer clothes on Victor.

"Now tell me what on earth is going on," Christophe demands, sitting down and holding Victor's glass out of reach until Victor sits up properly. If he isn't here to put out, he's not allowed to make a mess either. "Katsuki Yuuri? Really?"

"Really," Victor says, fond and almost sheepish. He takes a long swallow of wine, clearly having learned nothing from the night before. He never does. "He's something. Amazing."

"He's a mess," Christophe says tersely, and Victor nods ruefully. "Vitya, I don't _get_ it. He was a lot of fun, all right, but is one strip tease at a Grand Prix worth giving up…" Christophe trails off, leaving it open-ended. The season? His career? His freedom? "I don't even know what you two _are_. Are you his coach or his lover?"

"I want to be both." Victor sighs, his head falling against Christophe's shoulder. "Sometimes I think I'm neither."

"He idolizes you," Christophe points out. "It's dangerous. For _both_ of you."

"You sound like Yakov," Victor complains. He drains the rest of his glass and reaches across Christophe to put it on the bedside table. Then he lets his arm flop there, across Christophe's chest. "Are you angry with me?"

"No," Christophe tells him, the smallest lie. His eyes drift up to the ceiling. "I'm worried. And jealous some sweet-faced headache stole you off the ice, when he doesn't even seem to know what he's done. Does he even know he's skating a routine your choreographed about him?"

"No," Victor says, voice muffled against Christophe's shoulder. "Not really. First he thought he was a katsudon, and then maybe the lady. He changed half his choreography overnight. It's all very confusing. Do all coaches feel this way? Am I awful?"

"Yes, you stupid, stupid man, you are awful." Christophe threads fingers through the back of Victor's hair, barely long enough for him to do it, and pulls a little. He still misses the way it slid through his fingers when it was so much longer. "But it seems to be working, somehow. It always does, with you."

They drink the rest of the bottle, Victor winding the conversation off to other topics and Christophe letting him do it, because there's nothing he can do to stop it, in the end. He's not even sure he would stop Victor, even if he could, because as grating as it is to admit it, Victor's eyes are full of a soft light Christophe hasn't seen in years. It's between the two of them and God whether they'll ever stand on the ice together again, but it seems like Yuuri is the spark Victor was missing.

Christophe always thought it would be hard to give Victor away to someone else, but the truth is that it happened without him even noticing. The truth is, as Victor slips back to his room with a kiss brushed across Christophe's cheek and the soft click of the door, that Victor's hasn't ever been his to give away in the first place.


End file.
